We Found Love (In a Hopeless Place)
by CinderellaAtTheBall
Summary: A KingsleyHarry emergency services!AU. Paramedic Kingsley finds himself drawn to the dark-haired, green-eyed man he helps save. For Bex. Warning: mentions of blood.


_This was written for Bex! It's a KingsleyHarry emergency services!AU. I'm not sure how well I did, but it was fun to write. _

_Warning: mentions of blood. _

**MC4A**

**Fall Bingo: **B4 (blood)

**Word count: **1,701

* * *

**We Found Love (In a Hopeless Place)**

Kingsley pulled the ambulance into the parking lot, his expression grim. According to dispatch, a young male had suffered multiple stab wounds and was no longer conscious due to the copious amount of blood lost. Things weren't looking good, but Kingsley knew that he had to try his best to save this man.

He jumped out of the vehicle and hurried towards the victim. On his way there, he spotted the victim's companion, a redheaded female. She appeared distraught as she spoke with a police officer who had arrived on the scene a few minutes prior.

"... don't know why this happened," he heard her say.

Kingsley frowned. It seemed unlikely that the man would have been stabbed without provocation. That just didn't fit the statistics. But he couldn't think about that — it wasn't part of his job, and he had a seriously injured individual to attend to. The victim was his priority.

He strode towards the prone figure, who was sprawled face-down on the ground. Thick, messy black hair fell into the man's face. A pair of spectacles lay a short distance away, lenses cracked. Kingsley peered down at the victim and tried to ascertain where the bleeding was coming from. It was difficult seeing as there was so much blood soaking through the man's green T-shirt.

He gestured to one of his crew, a young woman who was fairly new to the job.

"Parvati, I need you to locate and apply pressure to the wound," he told her.

The young woman nodded resolutely and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. After a few moments, she located the source of the bleeding on the man's right side.

"Good," Kingsley murmured, his focus now on transferring the victim to the hospital before he lost any more blood. The third member of his crew, Oliver, had brought the stretcher over, and now he and Kingsley would have to lift the man while Parvati continued to staunch the bleeding.

"On three?" Oliver asked. Kingsley nodded and moved towards the man's head. After moving into position down by the man's legs, Oliver counted to three. Together, the two men lifted the unconscious individual onto the stretcher and carried it to the ambulance.

By this time, the police had apparently finished their interview with the victim's companion. She jogged over just as Kingsley and Oliver were settling the stretcher into place. Parvati remained at the man's side, applying pressure.

"Excuse me, will I be able to ride with Harry?" the woman asked.

Oliver looked to Kingsley for an answer. Kingsley nodded. "Hop in."

...

The woman's name was Ginny, and she and Harry had been childhood friends. Or rather, he and her _brother_ had been childhood friends and she had tagged along whenever she could. She and Harry had dated, too, but Harry had broken things off when he realized that he was gay. Kingsley only knew all of this because Ginny did not know how to shut up. He couldn't blame her for the nervous chatter, however. She needed to do something to distract herself from the worries running through her head. He had seen it many times before.

Even so, Kingsley felt a great sense of relief when Oliver maneuvered the ambulance in front of the E.R. entrance.

"We'll let you know where he ends up," he told Ginny, then busied himself with preparations to disembark. Ginny nodded, and Kingsley watched as she leaned over and whispered something into Harry's ear. His heart clenched painfully. It was clear to him that she still cared a great deal for Harry. Kingsley just wished that there was someone out there that cared half as much about him.

...

Kingsley had been in love once. But he had been young then, and quite a bit more reckless, and things hadn't exactly panned out. He had spent the years since throwing himself into his work. He had become a paramedic because he wanted to keep people from losing their loved ones — when he could. He had volunteered for the night shift because he didn't have anyone to share a bed with anyway.

He engaged in the occasional hookup, of course, but those always left him feeling even emptier than before. They were meaningless attempts to drive away the loneliness, and they never worked. He still hadn't found what he was really craving — _love._

...

Kingsley was exhausted. He had just finished his twelve-hour shift, and he was ready to go home and sleep. First, however, he wanted to check on something.

"Lavender, how's that stabbing vic we brought in earlier doing?" Kingsley asked, leaning on the reception desk counter. "Name's Harry?"

Lavender smiled at him. "He was stable, last I heard."

"Which room is he in?" Kingsley tried to keep his delivery casual and his expression neutral.

The receptionist checked her computer screen. "102." She tilted her head. "Why the interest, Shacklebolt?"

Kingsley shrugged. "I like to check on the people I bring in, you know that." He couldn't quite meet her eyes. If he was being honest, he had been curious about Harry ever since Ginny had mentioned his sexuality. It wasn't as though he knew many other gay men.

...

The door to room 102 was slightly ajar. Kingsley knocked, and a weak voice told him that he could come in. He pushed the door open a little further and stepped inside, where he promptly froze. Harry was propped up on some pillows, clad in a taupe hospital gown, but that wasn't what had surprised Kingsley. No, what had stopped the man in his tracks was Harry's brilliant green eyes, which were focused unsteadily on him. Kingsley had never seen such gorgeous eyes before.

"Hi," Harry said, a faint smile tugging at his lips. His voice was quiet, and Kingsley struggled to hear him over the sudden pounding in his ears. "Erm, can I help you?"

Kingsley shook his head, and the pounding ceased. "Sorry. I—I'm one of the paramedics who brought you in. I just…wanted to make sure you were okay before I went home."

If his reasoning sounded lame to Harry, the green-eyed man didn't let on. Instead, he grinned widely up at Kingsley. "You did? That's...wow. Thank you so much for everything." After a moment, he added jokingly, "The doctors think I'll live, by the way."

Kingsley smiled weakly. "That's good. I was worried for a little while there. You lost a lot of blood, you know."

Harry winced. "Yeah, so I heard."

Kingsley nodded at a chair situated next to the bed. "May I?" Harry nodded, and he dropped into it wearily.

"Long shift?" Harry commented.

"You have no idea." Kingsley rubbed his face with his hand and sighed.

"And yet, you're still here." Kingsley looked up to find Harry staring at him with unbridled curiosity. "Why?"

Kingsley contemplated how much to reveal. Finally, he settled on a half-truth. "Your friend — Ginny? — told me about you on the way here, and now I feel like I know you, somehow."

Harry's green eyes appraised him thoughtfully. "I see. What exactly did Ginny say about me?" he wanted to know.

"She mentioned that you and her brother were childhood friends," Kingsley said evasively.

"Is that all?" Harry's gaze was probing now, and Kingsley felt as though the other man knew exactly what he wasn't saying.

"She also said that you two had dated for a while," he added. "That is, before you realized you were gay."

The color drained from Harry's face, and he quickly buried his face in his hands. "I'll kill her," he whispered.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone," Kingsley quickly reassured him. He rose from his chair and tentatively put a hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry didn't shrink away, but his head whipped up to look at him suspiciously.

"Why are you really here" —he squinted at Kingsley's name tag — "Kingsley?"

"I rarely meet gay men through work," Kingsley admitted softly. "Or if I do, I don't know it." He withdrew his hand, but Harry grabbed it with lightning-fast reflexes.

"Are you...gay, too?" he asked, his eyes wide with something Kingsley didn't want to call hope. Kingsley hesitated, then nodded. "I guess that means I can tell you what I've been thinking since the moment you walked in here."

Curiosity piqued, Kingsley leaned towards him. "What's that?"

Harry flashed him a cheeky grin. "You're very easy on the eyes, Kingsley."

Kingsley pulled his hand from Harry's grasp and cleared his throat. He had to stop this — whatever _this_ was — before things became too inappropriate. He was sure that he had already violated several protocols. "I should be going," he said gruffly.

"Wait." Kingsley had intended to make a quick exit, but the pleading note in Harry's voice gave him pause. He turned back to the green-eyed man and waited. "I know you're probably really tired, but do you think you could stay with me a little while longer? Just until whenever Ginny's mum gets here?"

Kingsley was tempted to refuse. After all, he had no good reason to remain at Harry's side. And yet, he couldn't deny that he found Harry's easygoing and slightly awkward manner charming. Despite their age gap — the other man had to be a good twenty years younger — Kingsley felt drawn to him.

"I'll stay for a little while," he conceded at last, settling back into his chair.

...

Kingsley switched to the day shift a few months after meeting Harry. The two had begun dating after a few weeks of fighting their mutual attraction, and Kingsley's bed was no longer empty at night. Harry didn't feel like just another fling, either. Though Kingsley was loathe to admit it, he could see a future with the other man.

"I love you, Kings," Harry murmured one night. The words hung in the air between them for a moment, and Kingsley felt his heart begin to pound the way that it had when he first laid eyes on Harry's green ones.

"I love you too, Harry," he murmured back, unable to stop smiling because he had finally found someone who cared for him the way he had always wanted.


End file.
